OLED Lighting About to Make Rooms a Whole Lot Cooler

As we look for more ways to generate energy-efficient light, we’ve seen a gradual move away from the warm glow of incandescent light, to the ugly pinkish hues of CFL, to the strange blueish-white point-source light produced by LEDs. And frankly, none of those are nearly as cool as what awaits us in our futures – OLED lighting.

Organic Light Emitting Diodes are starting to emerge not only in flat-panel displays, but numerous prototypes of OLED lighting fixtures are starting to rear their heads. The great thing about OLED is not only that it is self-illuminating and eco-friendly, but that it’s not a point-source of light. Instead, OLED can be built into flexible panels and produced in specialized shapes, sizes and colors – providing a wonderful ambient glow. There are even transparent oled panels that you can see through, but that can still generate bright ambient lighting. Philips has even made some amazing interactive lighting fixtures using their new Lumiblade OLED technology.

Check out the gallery below to see a variety of prototype fixtures that use OLEDs to generate light.

In addition to Philips, there are many companies working on OLED lighting concepts, including GE, OSRAM, Siemens, Visionox, Samsung, and others – and it’s only a matter of time before we start to see mass-produced commercial lighting fixtures that use the technology. I see a bright future ahead of us.